


Not So NPC

by SilentMagi



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-09 04:04:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11661252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentMagi/pseuds/SilentMagi
Summary: What happens when an NPC accidentally kills a monster and gains EXP? Let's find out as Nadia discovers for herself.Prompt answer fromWriting Prompts, and rework ofChapter 22 of Magi's Tumblr Musings.





	1. Chapter 1

Life in Five Pines was never glamorous or eventful, being a small town in the middle of the southwestern corner of the kingdom, far from the more populated capital and the other main hubs of civilization. It was a peaceful and rustic area, and for the people of the town that was just fine. The farmers brought in their goods to sell in a weekly market, the baker provided baked goods for the town, and the innkeeper kept the ale flowing and tales being told.

Being the daughter of the only innkeeper in town had some benefits to go along with the long days of serving food and drinks, cleaning rooms, and tending to the small stable out back, especially during the weeks when no travelers came to the sleepy little town. Nadia had found herself with plenty of time growing up between chores to collect and read a fairly substantial amount of books. Waking up in her room with books nearby was a luxury on the days she could relax in her bed for a bit before rising to do chores.

Before the dawn she would make it down the road to the baker to place the order for the day, before coming back to the kitchen in the back of the inn and starting the morning meal for her family and any guests that were staying overnight. Usually it was a pot of boiled oats with bits of leftover meat from the night before for flavor.

After wiping down the bar and tables, sweeping the floor, and doing up the dishes, she was able to sit and read a bit from her book before her mother and father would start up lunch. She would tend the bar while the food cooked, usually a pretty lonely affair but perhaps another chapter. Lunch was followed by going to the stables and checking on the horses if there were any, or just sweeping it clean otherwise. This was usually accompanied by her friend Jillian coming from the small church across the road where she was studying to take over for the priest with a few other young adults.

The red-haired acolyte would spend some time chatting with her as they did the chores in the stables, whiling away the hot part of the day in the shade of the roofed off area. Every week or so Jillian would return a book she’d borrowed, and Nadia would let her take another to read in her free time. Once her chores were done for the day, her parents would either ask her to do an errand for some supplies for the rest of the day, or give her the afternoon off.

 

Jillian would often accompany her so they could pass the time talking about the books, or the coming season, or even rumors. And then it would be time for the evening meal, usually shared with the clergy church, so Nadia and Jillian would more often than not came in together and sat a little removed so the adults in charge of them could talk and they wouldn’t interrupt with their own conversation.

 

With the end of Dinner the priest and Jillian would head back for their evening duties, and Nadia would clean the dishes from dinner and any deep cleaning of the inn that her parents would like. Usually she would stay in the kitchen area and do the dishes as the mugs of ale flowed for the night. But generally she would just say out of the way and read her book between loads of mugs and plates.

 

The only real changes to that schedule is that if they had guests, then she would strip the bed linens, wash them, and clean the rooms after they had left, or they would cycle a few rooms every week otherwise for a thorough cleaning and washing of the linens.

 

This was all well and good until something unusual happens.

 

Everything would be fine, until the villagers found themselves speaking one line repeatedly and being unable to go about their days as normal. For example, Nadia would be in the middle of ordering the daily baked goods with the baker and she would only turn mid-word to go back to the Inn while the baker went inside and set about working his ovens. That would be the first and only clue that they had that there were adventurers in the area. She hated this part, because she would only be able to repeat the same exact phrase every time she attempted to speak. If she never heard the sentence, “Ask my father about the famous Dragon’s Breath Ale.” she would have been eternally happy.

 

Instead of going about her day, she would be stuck in the Inn behind the bar swiping a rag over the perpetually spotless surface in an endless motion, conveniently in the way of anyone getting behind the bar and to the rooms she and her family lived in. Her Father would perpetually polish a mug, while her mother would slowly rotate several chickens on a skewer over the hearth. The drone of her father’s boisterous “Best night’s sleep for miles!” and her mother’s chiding “Oh deary, the chicken’s are going to be a bit.” were nearly as infuriating as her own line.

 

At least if her father got approached by the adventurers he could barter with them. But even then it didn’t really work in their favor as she didn’t know what they’d do with ninety goblin spears, ten kobold tails, or even the old wooden toy mace someone had sold him previously, at least until the King’s tax collectors came around with the merchant to buy back some of the guff they’d collected over the year.

 

This had allowed her to amass her collection of books, since a lot of adventurers tended to sell off any books they could, and the merchant would trade them for smaller and lighter things with a remarkable turnaround. She’d once gotten five books for a single copper ring with a green gemstone chip set in it. Even still, it was annoying that she had to deal with adventurers to feed her love of reading.

 

Besides the rare visit by adventurers it was a nice and pleasant life. And to be fair, most adventurers never came this far into the countryside. Those that did were usually only in town for a night at most, and then were gone. Generally it was an agreeable life.

 

So one might have found it understandable that when she was forced to set her book on the edge of the bar in mid-paragraph to snatch up her rag, she was hardly to be blamed when it came tumbling off. For the most part it likely would have just been an unremarkable incident save for a few key details.

 

The first was that the adventurers had come into the Inn and started trading with her father, at least most of them had. The hulking brute of a fighter was over by her mother checking on the chickens, while the spell caster simply bought a bottle of wine and settled down at a table to let the party barter. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the little creature the wizard talked to as a familiar slipping in behind the bar, heading for the bedrooms. The doors were enchanted to not let any type of non-sentient creature enter without an escort, so it wasn’t a real problem for it to be there, mostly just in the way.

 

That was until the little rat familiar of the wizard tried to ram itself under the door, hitting with a solid thud. That was when the final piece of the puzzle fell quite literally into place. She had been reading a rather heavy book about a princess that donned a cursed suit of armor to save her father’s life and the adventure she had to release herself from the armor, and she had barely gotten it balanced on the edge of the bar before the compulsion became too much for her to ignore. She could only watch helplessly as the book tumbled over the edge and landed squarely on the head of the rat, and judging by the mess it didn’t feel much.

 

The pained gasp of the spell caster brought her focus back around as she continued scrubbing the same spot of the bar. “Ugh! Stupid rat, that’s the fifth one this adventure,” he snarled as he walked over to lean against the bar, barely noticing when her rag brushed against him. “Not even a trap this time, just a scripted accident. I have to rethink familiars.”

 

“Or you could learn to keep them out of stupid areas,” the man in black leathers that had been trading with her father snarked as he pocketed the gold. “Come on, let’s go and find the King’s old Wizard, he’s supposed to be in this town.”

 

The bare chested fighter let out a groan of displeasure at that, his muscular form slumping like a child denied sweets. Moving over towards the bar, he leaned forward, showing off his massive reach as he managed to pick up the headless rat and hold him out to the spellcaster. “Here be Ratty, you fix again, yes?”

 

Her attention focused on the conversation, she barely noticed that she broke her pattern enough to wipe up the blood droplets that had fallen in the rat’s passing, which should have been an inch out of her motion. “Forgive us dear,” the man in heavy armor with a religious symbol on his tabard offered softly as he began corralling his compatriots towards the exit.

 

She hesitated a beat of her heart before the words came out of her like the instinct it should have been. “Ask my father about the famous Dragon’s Breath Ale,” she mentioned, giving her a shot of normality that she never would have imagined being possible from the phrase she’d been saying since nearly the day she learned to talk.

 

“Come off it Geoff, it’s an NPC, they don’t care,” the man in black leathers groaned with a roll of his eyes as they left, the door closing behind them cutting off any reply Geoff might have made. This unfortunately left her stuck in the motion with nothing to do but to think about the oddities of that conversation, and a new sensation of accomplishment that simmered in the back of her mind.

 

It wasn’t until hours later, when the adventurers had gone that she was able to retrieve her book and look in dismay at the red tinted matter that was staining her story. She’d never be able to get it out, not without magic, and there wasn’t a spell caster that wasn’t an adventurer for miles.

 

Unless… there was that wizard that the party had mentioned, and old man Marcus had moved in not a few years ago. It was a long shot, but she had a bit of coin saved up for the next time the merchant came to town, she could pay for him removing the blood, if he was a wizard that is.

 

Pursing her lips, she looked at the setting sun, and the priest arriving with a few other townsfolk to help eat the chicken that her mom had cooked. She’d have to check tomorrow, when there were less folk around. Maybe she and Jillian could just take a walk there in the afternoon?

 

Putting that aside for the night, she listened in as the other villagers traded tales of what the adventurers had been upto in town, and missed the looks that her mother and father had been giving each other behind her back.


	2. Chapter 2

After her chores the next day, Nadia stepped out of the stables and found herself enjoying the light spring breeze which helped clear the smell of old straw and hay from her nose and replace it with the sweet smell of the grass fields to the east of town. “You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to, Jillian, I know it’s a long shot and I don’t want to waste your time with this if you have anything you’d rather do,” she offered while looking over at the redhead who was just giving her a patient smile.

“I know, but I don’t have anything better to do, and if he can do magic, I think it’d be fun to see it. Not like those street performers during Summer Festival, but real magic,” Jillian pointed out while indicating that Nadia should lead the way.

The walk towards the old man’s little cottage was a short one, as were most in the small village. He was pretty much directly opposite of the town square, where the festival would be set up in a few months, but for now generally housed the village’s herds until the fences around the eastern fields was repaired from the winter’s damages. Reaching out, she patted one of the sheep pressed against the fence lightly on the head with a smile. “I might volunteer to help them take these guys out to the fields again this year, can’t leave it to those irresponsible boys, can we?”

“No, I suppose not,” Jillian agreed with a faint laugh as she remembered their foray into herding last year. Nadia had spent most of the day threatening the boys with her crook if they didn’t stop bugging her while they were working. The farmer was not pleased to hear about how his sons had been acting and they each had to present an apology speech to her, Jillian, and their adult caretakers.

The rest of the walk was spent discussing things that would need to done over the coming season to prepare for the warmer weather of Summer. The square gave way to the nicer houses of the villages affluent members. Which generally meant that instead of thatch over wood, they had shingles, and the outer walls were painted with colors over the masonry.

There were herb gardens, window boxes with flowers, and open areas with sitting furniture and umbrellas. The two of them were slightly jealous about the wealth on display here, the mayor’s house was at the end of the row, but for the most part it was merchants and business owners. But the one that they were destined towards was a few houses down the road from it.

It was painted a faint blue hue, with several strange looking plants in the window box. Sitting in front of the doors was an old man with a grey beard to the middle of his chest, and a set of cloth pants and shirt. “Ho there girls,” he called out as they drew near, his eyes sparkling under his wide brimmed hat. “I dare say that you do not come to this side of town often, let me see if these old eyes are being deceived. It is Acolyte Jillian and the Innkeeper’s daughter Nadia, is it not?”

“Yes sir,” they answered with wide smiled and slight bows.

“What brings you out this way? Out for a stroll?” he asked as he set the pipe aside, letting the tobacco smolder out while he had company.

Nadia took a step forward, taking one of the other seats at his invitation as Jillian took the other. “Forgive us the intrusion, but I had heard a rumor that you might know magic and was hoping you could help me fix something. If not, perhaps your wisdom from your years could help me with it.”

“Magic? Pah, there is magic in all life girlie, but I may know a trick or two to help with fixing things,” Marcus answered with a slight laugh to his aged voice. Leaning forward, he watched her pull the story book out of her pack and showed the blood soaked cover and pages. “I see, that is a rather difficult stain to get out.”

“Do you know how to get it out?” she asked nervously as she still had a good chunk of this story to go, and much of the words were unreadable because of the gore from the rodent familiar. “I have some money saved up, if it is a matter of payment, or I can help you out everyday if that’s not enough.”

Marcus stroked his beard in thought as a snake slipped out of a small flap at the base of his door and began climbing up the back of his chair. Jillian stared at it in open shock, reaching out to grab at Nadia’s shoulder to pull her away from the ten foot long serpent. “Do not mind Josephine, she is harmless,” the old man stated as he reached out for the book. “What happened?”

“It fell on a rat yesterday,” Nadia explained before finally noticing the snake. Looking it squarely in the eyes, she blinked as it flickered its tongue out at her. “It… it was the familiar of the spell caster I think, but he didn’t seem too broken up about it.”

“Pah, adventurers these days, they don’t bond with their familiars properly anymore,” he scoffed while Josephine curled lazily over his shoulder and flicked her tongue at the book curiously. “But a rat… yes, I believe we can get the blood off of it, but I need something. These old bones can’t go out to get it anymore.”

“I could help you with that, since you would be helping me,” Nadia offered, barely hearing the echo of agreement from Jillian as she felt a strange eagerness to do this. It was more than the desire to get her book in readable condition, but something inside her was all but begging her to do whatever it was that Marcus needed to be done.

Marcus seemed to regard her with a steady gaze for a moment longer than she felt was normal before clearing his throat and leaning forward. “You know of the mines to the south of the town? The ones into the Ash Hills?” he asked, pausing long enough for them to nod before continuing with his speech. “If you could get me a few fingernail sized pieces of flint from there, along with some fern fronds, I will repair the book for you.”

“That’s a couple hours there and back, will that be too long?” Nadia asked after doing some mental math. She would have to tell her parents that she wasn’t going to be at dinner, but it wasn’t so bad. The road was fairly well maintained, and the flint was plentiful, the little chips she’d be after should be cheap enough. And ferns were just blossoming in the forest, so it should be easy to pluck a few handfuls of them.

“No, I the method can be used years later, but you do not strike me as the type to dally with this,” he explained with a kindly smile as he reached into one of his pants pockets and pulled out a bit of charcoal and scrap paper. Writing down the instructions, he repeated them out loud. “Let’s see… I will need five bits of flint, and ten fronds. The size doesn’t matter on the fronds, but the flint should be no smaller than your pinkie finger nail. Oh, and if you happen to pass your Father’s inn and your mother has any chicken to spare, I would not object to that as payment in lieu of the standard gold.”

“Right… so this is like materials for a spell or something?” she asked curiously, feeling Jillian practically bouncing in her seat. That was her friend after all, always curious about seeing new things in the rather quiet life of the village.

The eagerness seemed to be amusing to the old man as he let out a chuckle and nodded his head. “You could say that, yes… I did dabble a bit in magic when I was younger and remember the spell for cleaning things up.”

That got a squeak of happiness out of Jillian, which made Nadia look back just in time to see her cheeks growing red while her hands clamped down over her mouth, though the twinkle of her eyes gave away her joy at the prospect of seeing magic being performed. “Thank you so much sir, I will go right away and tell my parents where I’m going, and see if she has any chicken left that I can bring back to you.”

“That sounds wonderful. I hope you enjoy the walk,” he offered with a dismissive wave of his hand as he continued turning the book over in his hands.

The pair stood up and left to rush off to the Inn to prepare for the adventure in the hills south of town. They probably wouldn’t be out of the sight of the old guard tower to the north of the town, but it was exciting to go out and do something new.

Yet, Nadia couldn’t shake the strange feeling that she shouldn’t be as excited as she was.


End file.
